Page:Stewart Edward White--The Rose Dawn.djvu/334

322 "May I ask what you are driving at?" asked Kenneth, defensively.

Corbell handed him the letter. Kenneth read it through, slowly, the colour ebbing from his face. When he had finished he threw his head back.

"Do you believe this of me?" he asked simply.

"Jim Paige is not a man to make rash statements," said Corbell.

"I am not referring to what the facts may or may not be. I am referring to your inferences as to motives. This," Kenneth struck the letter violently with his fingers, but immediately regained control of himself, "states that there have been certain negotiations as to Colonel Peyton's ranch between my father and the bank. It goes on to impute base motives both to my father and myself. I am not asking you about my father—you don't know him. I am asking you about myself; you do know me. Do you believe this of me?"

"If the facts are as stated, what else are we to believe?" asked Frank Moore bluntly.

Kenneth turned on him almost savagely.

"Facts or no facts, do you think I am the sort to do a dirty trick to a man like Colonel Peyton; that's what I want to know?"

"No, by God, I don't!" roared big Bill Hunter.

"Thank you, Bill," said Kenneth gently, but he continued to look at the others.

It was Carlson, the poet, who took the situation out of the emotional and brought it to a basis of sense.

"Now see here, Kenneth," he said. "You know you can't, in the circumstances, expect to put us on the defensive. I don't think anybody suspects that you would deliberately do anything you would think wrong. What we are trying to find out is what do you think wrong, when it comes to a matter of business? We think this thing needs explanation; and, personally, I believe we have a right to an explanation."

"I haven't been asked for an explanation, I've been condemned," stated Kenneth curtly.

"Beg your pardon, Boyd," said Corbell, stiffly. "My fault."